Monday, July 11, 2011

Murdoch The Movie-The Empire Strikes Back

In Januarythe Shuttle brought news of a proposed movie based on the life of Rupert Murdoch-the Sun King who has arrived in London to try and stem the fallout from the great hacking scandal.

Getty/The Beast

'Murdoch' the movie was commissioned by the UK's Channel 4 and written by TV script writer JesseArmstrong
but 4 decided against making it. It's now being handled by a top agency
Creative Artist's Agency who are looking for a producer and backer. Presumably Fox Studios won't be bidding for the rights any time soon.

Colin Myler- editor of the lateNoTW(Getty/The Beast)

The script blurb reads : "As his family gathers for his birthday party, Rupert Murdoch tries to
convince his elder children to alter the family trust so that his two
youngest children by his newest wife will have voting rights in the
company." The events of the last week must surely mean that it's just a matter of time before this film is made.

All movie scripts evolve over time and we proposed a number of actors to take leading roles including Barry Humphries (manager of gigastar Dame Edan Everage) as Rupert Murdoch (he's already played him in the Hitler Diaries) and Hayden Christensen as the good looking James Murdoch.

New characters have moved into the frame though, so to speak. In particular Rebekah Brooks the CEO of Murdoch's News Corporation who from all reports, Rupert regards as one of the family. And Andy Coulson the hapless former adviser to British PM David Cameron.

Fortunately The Daily Beast has come up with an updated cast list which looks spot on and you can see from our pictures some of the proposed new cast for the movie.
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As the scandal swirled around the News Corp bunker at Wapping in East London and in the offices of the 168 year old tabloid News of The World, journalists were already seething over the flame haired CEO of News Corp and the former editor of the newspaper Rebekah Brooks who most of the hacks had come to the conclusion had led the the tabloid into treacherous waters with her 'take no prisoners' style of editing.

There are reports of writers being berated for up to an hour at the 11am editorial meeting and tales of younger journalists fleeing to the toilets in tears over Ms Brooks threats that they would receive their marching orders unless they came up with a major celebrity or political based piece of scandal to fill the pages.

In it's final weeks a YouTube video was doing the rounds-unbeknown to Rebekah-that was viewed with glee by the staff. It's a clip from a movie called Vile Pervert produced by pop mogul Jonathan King who spent time as a guest of Her Majesty and has often complained that the tabloid unfairly distorted reporting of his predicament.